


All Out of Love

by Enigmanimate



Series: Drabble Delights [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Conversations, Friendship, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 14:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16704322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigmanimate/pseuds/Enigmanimate
Summary: Hermione worries. Harry wonders.





	All Out of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song by Air Supply.

Hermione stills midway through braiding gold ribbons into her hair.

"Malfoy?" she echoes. "You were with Malfoy?"

Harry shrugs casually, not feeling very casual about it. "Yeah. He's been a real help with Potions. You know I need that damn NEWT for Auror training."

Hermione frowns. "You could've asked me."

"You and Ron have been a bit busy these days, yeah? I didn't want to be a bother."

His words must have sounded resentful, because a crinkle materialises between her bushy brows. "I—"

"I didn't mean it that way," he assures. "You deserve to be happy. Merlin knows we all do."

"And you're happy with Draco Malfoy?"

There's a certain edge to her voice that has him blushing at the implication. "We're-er, it's not-like that. We just study together once a while."

Hermione squeezes his hand, her brown eyes round and worried. "I'm just saying you should be careful, Harry."

"Of course." The he thinks. Of Draco sat small and hunched in the library, of how he'd gawked at Harry when he first approached him. How Malfoy's eyes still widen each time Harry smiles at him. And Harry feels an inexplicable need to defend the boy. "He's not so bad, you know," he says. "He's sorry for what he's done."

"He's sorry so we just forgive him?" Hermione says icily. Her fingertips trail unconsciously across her forearm where he knows Mudblood is burned into her skin. "It's not that simple."

Harry doesn't know what's got into him. He's never been the forgiving type. Especially not when it comes to a certain blond childhood rival. "Malfoy has changed." He's speaking not with a smidge of prior knowledge but an ingrained instinct that goes deep as the marrow of his bones. "I trust him."

Hermione is quiet. "I don't like the way he looks at you," she says finally.

"The way he...looks at me?"

"Like he's plotting what to do to you. Like he wants to devour you." She shudders. "It's savage."

Her head burrows back into the thick tome she's holding. Harry just sits there, twirling a pheasant quill between two fingers. _Devour you_. Why do those words send a shiver down his spine? "I trust him," he repeats.


End file.
